Geometric Mage: First Spell, Circle

Lian opened the door, and as usual, Rick threw himself onto his clean, fragrant bed.

"W-where the hell have you been?!?" he yelled furiously, his eyes bloodshot. "Why are you so dirty?" Taking slow, deep breaths, Lian told himself to calm down.

He didn't even want to dirty his hands by grabbing him by the collar.

"Hey, Lian, relax, buddy! You should get out more; you can't spend all your time training," Rick said, rolling on the sheets, taking a deep breath. "They're so fragrant—"

Before Lian could launch a super-charged fireball and destroy everything, Rick's words stopped him.

"I found the third member for our group."

Hearing this, Lian calmed down for a moment.

"It's a girl—"

Before Rick could finish, Lian was already channeling mana into his hands.

"Wait, she's not just cute—"

"Ignis Arde—"

"Stop, Lian, wait! She has a dual affinity, Water and Earth. Plus, she's Bronze 3!"

"Igni—" Lian halted his spell.

In truth, it was all a farce on his part. Without forming the shape in his mind, channeling mana and reciting the incantation were useless.

"I'm meeting her tonight to see if she's suitable," Rick said, getting up from the bed and sitting. "We're going to dinner together… by the way." Rick's voice dropped to a near whisper as he continued.

"Can you lend me some money?"

Lian raised an eyebrow. "I didn't hear you, what did you say? Why'd you lower your voice?"

Gathering his courage, Rick repeated, "Can you lend me some money?"

That explains the premonition and visions of extreme poverty that hit me earlier… Lian thought, clenching his fists and approaching Rick.

"Why don't you get a job or do missions like other students?" he said, throwing punches at his friend.

---

Lian had a slight headache. Rick had managed to swindle 2,000 gold coins from him. "That bastard…" he whispered with a faint smile.

Lian was not too attached to money, especially now that he could earn a fortune selling artifacts.

Rick had not only taken his money but also told him about his day—or rather, his afternoon.

The guy had woken up at noon…

"He is improved a lot since then, huh?" Lian thought back to when they had their artifact stolen by Plammer. The next day, Rick was… different.

Not in personality—he was still an idiot—but his power had undergone a transformation. Lian did not know how, but apparently, Rick had become stronger.

That afternoon, in fact, he had not only faced another Bronze 3 student like himself, beating him soundly—albeit in a friendly way—

But he had also challenged a Bronze 4 student.

Result? He won!

Lian had no idea how he did it, and when asked for an explanation, Rick said it was a secret and that Lian would see during the event.

Thanks to this uncertain tale, Rick had earned his allowance for the evening.

"Tch, I just hope the new member is useful… a dual affinity roaming free in the academy, and the main factions do nothing? I doubt it; there is something fishy…"

Shaking his head to dismiss the thought, Lian focused on the task at hand: creating artifacts.

With a hand gesture, he brought out all the Runic Seals he had just created, while another gesture made a pile of swords to enchant appear in a corner.

"Let's start with the simplest."

He grabbed a random sword, placing it on the table. Then he took the Runic Stylus, first creating the main branching line on the blade, then the matrix on the hilt, consisting of one circle plus two concentric circles.

Everything was done with precision, and Lian succeeded in creating it on the first try.

"Perfect, here is the first Bronze 2 artifact! I have already earned 800 gold coins!"

From what Lian recalled based on what he saw at the store, artifact prices varied by rank.

For example, for a fire sword like the standard one Lian created, prices were 700 for a Bronze 1 and 800 for a Bronze 2.

The value increased slightly for Bronze 3 and 4, worth 1,000 and 1,200 gold coins, respectively.

For the same Bronze 5 artifact, the price was 1,500 gold coins.

"Good, considering I will sell them wholesale, the price will be reduced… unless I open my own store," he murmured thoughtfully, twirling the sword in his hands.

"Now that I think about it, I need to engrave my symbol on it, the one that made me faint before. I do not think it will happen again…"

Taking another tool given by Torin, a smaller version with a sharper tip than the stylus, Lian began engraving directly on the blade's lower end.

His movement was slow but precise as he carved the first shape, the circle.

The symbol Lian designed did not only include geometric shapes but also accounted for when he unlocked them.

The first shape was the circle.

Circumscribed around it, a square took form.

Sharing the same base as the square, an irregular triangle appeared.

And finally, like glue enveloping it all, an oval, like an eye, wrapped the structure, with the triangle's edges touching three points of the oval.

"Perfect!" he whispered, his satisfied face observing his creation.

"Who knows, maybe when I'm strong and famous, this simple Bronze 2 sword will be worth millions of gold—" a soft laugh echoed in the room.

"Now…" Lian counted all the Runic Seals he had made that afternoon. "Besides the Bronze 2 I just used, I have two Bronze 3 enchantments and four Bronze 4… great, let's get to work!"

It was not particularly difficult work. Compared to Torin himself, Lian could consider himself even better.

There had been failures during enchantment creation, but it only happened once with the Bronze 4 rune set.

—And then five more times in a row with the Bronze 5 rune sets, but those are details—

Calmly and precisely, Lian began drawing another matrix on the new sword. He could not afford to mess up this step, or his room would explode.

"Speaking of that…" he murmured, pausing for a second. "Maybe it's time to show Torin what I can do… I should be able to get my own house—"

Lian stopped for a moment, thoughtful. "Why doesn't Torin stay at his own house to craft artifacts? Don't tell me he stays there just to teach me—"

The revelation hit him like a bolt, nearly making his hands tremble and fail the matrix creation. "Damn—"

After a few more strokes of the Runic Stylus, Lian successfully created the matrix. "And now, let's insert the enchantment!" he murmured as his mana reached the Runic Seal, collecting the enchantment within.

With a fluid motion, he inserted it into the matrix, and after glowing for a moment, the sword returned to normal. "Another success!" he said excitedly. "And that's another 1,000 gold coins. Ah, this is truly the path to success; I'm really talented!"

Without pausing, Lian began doing the same with the other swords, slowly turning them into Bronze 4 artifacts.

"Good, and with this one," he said as he finished creating the matrix on the last sword, "that's four!" The smile on Lian's face never left him; his cheeks were starting to ache.

With a fluid motion, repeated several times in the last few minutes, Lian grabbed the last Runic Seal, extracting the enchantment within, ready to insert it into the matrix.

But the moment the enchantment reached the matrix—

"No, damn, damn, damn—"

The sword on the desk began glowing intensely, showing no sign of stopping. "It's going to explode!"

With his mind in panic and legs trembling, Lian started running, trying to escape his own room.

He barely made it out and rolled away before the explosion echoed through the entire dormitory.